Cat and Mouse, a Demon's story
by shadowfax-in-the-shadows
Summary: the warring between the demons and the humans has been going on for too long, and Yukiko along with Inuyasha, Sakura, and Aki have plans to end it.
1. Chapter 1

**Hello shadowfax-in-the-shadows here! I am very exited to be doing this fan fiction and I would like to say thank you to my good friend OuranKarate for encouraging me to do this. Any way, without further ado, I give you the story! (Taa Daa!)**

**(note-this takes place pre-Kagome, and pre-Kikyo, so they will not appear in this story.)**

**I do not own Inuyasha, or any of it's characters.**

A very long time ago, before all the fuss about the jewel of four soul souls being broken,there was a great war, or well more a great game of cat and mouse between the humans and the demons. The humans wanted to get rid of all of the demons, for they thought that the demons were what caused all of their problems, and that killing them,would make those problems go away. Many demons where killed, yet many fought back as well. But most demons went into hiding, disguised as humans, or just hiding where rarely any living creature, be it human, animal, or demon, could look upon them.

One demon who went into hiding disguised as human, was a tiger demon called Yukiko. She was a fairly ordinary demon, there where many cat demons of different sorts, including tiger. She had black hair with orange highlights, witch settled across her mid-back, though her hair was usually up in a bun. Her eyes were large, black, and cat-like, and they had a slight glimmer to them, making you know she was bold and adventurous. Her lips usually found their way to a smirk, or half smile, and her skin was a beautiful tan in color.

And of course Yukiko had tiger aspects to her as well. She had tiger ears on her head, and a tiger tail, as well as the claws and feet of a tiger. She did have special shoes to cover up the fact that she had little kitty feet. And Yukiko had the strength and power of the tiger as well, making her an exceedingly powerful fighter.

Yukiko grew up in a family of five, her mother, her father, and two younger sisters, all tiger demons. When she was still quite young, she left her family. With her sisters fighting, and her parents trying to calm them, she was pushed away, and found it easier to just leave, and come back in the evening. One day, she decided not to return.

Many months after she had left home, Yukiko received news of the humans killing all of the demons they could find. So she pulled her hood over her ears, tucked her tail in her skirt, and set off for the nearest village.

Yukiko soon accustomed to the village life, she had found a small inn in witch she had stayed, and she went to the market every few days for supplies. After about two weeks, something a little more than coincidental happened.

Yukiko was in the market, when a large burly man steeped up on a wooden box, and began to speak in a loud thunderous voice.

"Who here can fight?" he boomed. The bluntness of his question and the sheer volume of his voice made most of the people in the market look up at the dark haired man. "I said who here is capable of fighting?" he said as he looked around the crowd of people. A few men slowly raised their hands.

"Why do we need to fight?" one of the men asked.

"I need many men who are skilled at fighting because we need," he paused. "we need demon slayers."

A short, fat man walked up behind Yukiko, and put his hand on her left shoulder. "I am sure this one could fight. That spear must be for something." he said. Yukiko looked at the homemade spear in her right hand, then down at the round man. She punched him in his large stomach, and he decided to leave her alone.

"The way you knocked the air out of that man was quite impressive." the man on the box boomed. The fat man fell onto his back. "I shall make you a demon slayer."

Yukiko's face turned from annoyed to surprised in an exceedingly short amount of time. She didn't want to be a demon slayer, she was a demon herself! Though she certainly was not going to admit it to the burly man on the wooden box.

"you six men, and you, woman, Monday morning I want all of you at the village center." the large man said as he stepped off of the crate and walked away before any of them could protest.

Yukiko spent the rest of her time in the market receiving awed looks and the occasional glare from others in the bustling mangle of shops. She knew that going to the town center to get the job was the right thing to do, but slaughtering other demons...

_I'll try it out for a while, and if something goes wrong then, I will tell that tall man that I quit._ Yukiko thought to herself. _I think this will end up working quite well._

Yukiko walked briskly back to the inn, and went up to her room. She looked out her window, the sun was sinking into the hills in the west. Before long Yukiko was lighting the candles around her small room, but almost just as quickly as she lit them, Yukiko decided to blow them out and go to bed.

Yukiko woke up as the sun was hitting her eyes. she sat in bed for a while pondering the previous day's events. She looked outside and noticed the hustle and bustle of the market.

_why is everyone up so early? _Yukiko thought. Then it hit her, it was Monday.

Yukiko grabbed her spear and cloak, pulled the hood over her ears, and went down to the town center.

The tall man and five of the six men where already there, along with a woman.

"Ah good," the large man said "Let me formally introduce myself, my name is Mikio." the sixth man arrived. "We are all here. Let me and my assistant take you to slayer's hall." Mikio said as he led them away from the village center.

Yukiko had been in the village long enough to know that 'slayer's hall' was a large building near the market, but that was all she really knew.

"hello" said the woman. She had slowed down to walk with Yukiko. "I am Mikio's assistant, high grade fighter, skilled in the ninja arts, twenty six years old, named Aki. You?" she said as she reached out to shake her hand.

**So what do you think? I know first chapters are not the best. I will have more chapters coming soon. please review! Until next time, goodbye! **


	2. Chapter 2

**Hello one and all! shadowfax-in-the-shadows here! I'm very sorry that it took me a while to get this chapter posted, I switched English teachers, so I had a TON of make up work to do. Well enough of me yapping, I'm sure you just want me to get to the story.**

**I do not own Inuyasha or any of it's characters.**

Yukiko reached out to shake the young woman's hand. Aki had long brown hair that reached to her mid back, her bangs were very long, and dyed green. She had a sword tied to her left side by a long red piece of cloth, and her right sleeve was torn off at the shoulder, revealing a large swirling tattoo that came from her shoulder all of the way down to her thumb and first finger. It was every shade of brown that could be thought up. There was a mask covering her nose and mouth, common among demon slayers. Her white pants where clearly too long, for they pooled around her feet.

They walked in silence towards slayer's hall, everyone in the busy streets parted to make a path for the tall man and those who were in his company. Upon arriving at the large front doors to the hall, Mikio stopped, turned around, and said:

"This is slayer's hall. It will now become where you spend most of your time." He pushed one massive door open, and the other followed, revealing a great room. "Welcome home."

Aki and Yukiko followed Mikio and the six other men through the great doorway. The hall was filled with slayers as far as the eye could see. Most were men. Yukiko could tell that the men were of all ages, and the women, though far less in number than the men, were on average younger than the men, and yet they seemed just as capable. Yukiko looked around; there were many colored tapestries decorating the tall walls. Off to her left she could see a hallway. She didn't know where it led to, but there were many doors branching off of it. Someone rang a gong at the far end of the hallway and a little less than half of the slayers crowded down a flight of stairs.

Mikio led them down a hallway and into the second door on the left. Aki came in last and shut the door behind them. Mikio proceeded in pulling out seven sheets of paper with small writing on them. He put the papers on the desk that was standing on one side of the room. "These will be your contracts," he began. "I will need each of you to sign your name and put down the date."

"What are these contracts for?" asked the shortest of the six men.

"They are to make sure you don't run away from the company and they also are proof that you will..." he paused, "...abide by our rules."

Yukiko took a pen and a contract off the desk and so did each of the six men. The tallest of the men asked, "Pardon me, but what is today's date?"

Mikio turned to face Aki. "Today is Tuesday the 22nd, correct?"

Aki had an amused expression on her face. "No," she chuckled. "It's Monday the 15th."

The tallest of the men smiled and wrote the date on his contract. Aki came over to collect the papers. "Mikio is not very good with dates," she whispered to Yukiko. "But don't say it to him. He gets angry and denies it whenever someone tells him so."

Yukiko grinned and looked over at the tall broad man sitting at the desk and putting the contracts in an envelope. Mikio sealed the envelope with a wax stamp and put them in a drawer of the desk. He looked up at his assistant. "Aki, I have somewhere I need to be. Inform the recruits on how things work around here." As he said this, Mikio stood up and left his office. Everyone turned toward Aki. Aki began to speak. "Do you remember hearing the gong when we were about to enter this office?" The men shook their heads no, but Yukiko said she did.

Aki continued, "That gong is for our newer recruits. They are like students here. Everyday they go to different rooms at different times. You will join them until either Mikio or another of the heads of the hall deems you ready to begin missions with our non 'student' members."

Aki led them out of the office and into the hallway. She took them to a door at the end of the great room near the gong. "In here," Aki said, "is where our missions overseer's office is. Once you 'graduate' from the 'student' phase, you will come to this man to receive your missions."

The group followed Aki down the stairs that the students rushed down after the gong rang and into another slightly smaller large room.

This room was also decorated with large colorful tapestries, and there were two rooms branching off each of the four sides of the larger room. "Most of these rooms are various types of training rooms for the younger, more studentish recruits, " Aki said as she spread her arms and walked across the mostly empty room. "Except for these two rooms...the larger two." Aki led the group across to the far side of the great room. She went towards the left doorway. The door was open and she motioned Yukiko and the six men to look inside. Yukiko realized that most of the slayers in this room would not fit under the category of "studentish." They took a step back. "This is the training room for our 'graduated' slayers. Here they can train as they please." Aki led the group to the right doorway. She opened the door and Yukiko followed by the six men and Aki stepped inside.

This room was filled with weapons and armor and there was a man behind a counter in the corner slaving over an anvil and a hot piece of metal. Aki began to speak. "This is the blacksmith's room and the armory. If you should ever need armor or a weapon on any of your missions, this would be the place to go." Aki looked over at Yukiko, who was tightly gripping her spear in her left hand. "And should you, Yukiko, ever need that spear sharpened, I'm sure our blacksmith would do an excellent job," Aki said with a smile. Yukiko looked at her spear and over at the blacksmith across the room. She was about to point out the fact that she could do a dandy job sharpening her spear and she didn't need the help of some sweaty blacksmith but she figured that she better keep her mouth shut because at the volume she was about to say that, the blacksmith would have heard her very clearly and would probably have gotten exceedingly angry. Yukiko was the first to leave the room and Aki, sensing that the men were anxious to get moving as well, decided to move on.

Aki led them back up the stairs and over to a row of shelves, hooks, and cubbies near the hallway with the offices. She took down seven black cloth masks, exactly like the one she herself was wearing, and gave one to each of the six men and the last one to Yukiko. Then she told them to go see the man in the office at the very end of the hallway, and he would assess them as to where they would be in the "student" level.

Aki left them to tend to her own business when the man let the recruits into his office. He told them to each take a seat and he would assess them one by one. When it was Yukiko's turn to be assessed, he told her to stand up but not to bring her spear. He led her into a smaller room, as he had done with all of the men. He told her that to assess where she would be, she was to fight him in mortal combat. Within the first thirty seconds, the man was lying on his face on the ground with Yukiko looming over him, a smirk on her face. The man stood up and brushed himself off. He told her that she was an excellent fighter, and should she have had her spear, he probably would be dead. He wrote something on his clipboard and led her back into the room with the rest of the men. After about five minutes of writing on his little clipboard, he stood up and told them where they were to be assigned. The shortest of the men and the thinnest of the men were to be placed fairly high up in the "student" ranks. The fattest of the men was to be placed very low down. The man with red hair and the tallest of the men were to be placed in the middle lower section, and the man with the mustache was placed in the middle upper "student" class. Then the man turned toward Yukiko. He looked down at her and told her she was not to be a "student" here. He went on to say something about her being a great fighter or something long and boring like that. Eventually, he gave it to her straight and told her she was to be placed immediately with the "graduated" slayers, and as soon as possible, she was to see the missions overseer for her firs slaying job.

**Well, how was it? Probably not that good, but hay, at least we are getting further into the story.**

**Please review! Until next chapter, see you! :)**


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